Where's Bob?

I was putting together the roster for my summer course and was struck by how many of the 29 given names on the list would not – could not – have appeared on my first classes’ rosters some 35 years ago. The Asian names are, of course, the most obvious (though male or female, I don’t know): Yufei, Kaibo, Kok Chang, Yi, Aoyi, Shuai, and Ning. I don’t know that I encountered an Asian name on a roster until the early if not late 1980s. Now almost 25% of the class is Asian. (And this at a college in Iowa, not exactly close to the west coast where you might expect more Asian students.) The male non-Asian students’ names are more likely to have shown up on my first rosters: Mark (of course), Matthew (continuing the Biblical tradition), Jeremiah, Andrew, Seth, Darren, Dustin, and Jonathan. I suspect that the tradition of paternal perpetuation of lineage accounts for this, though I rarely see anymore a Bob or George or Roger or Ralph or Gary or Henry or Jim, names of some of my college classmates. But it’s the women’s names on my roster that are mostly new to me. Yes, there are still a few familiar ones: Susan, Erin, Jessica, Paige, and Marci (though I think the “i” instead of “y” is fairly recent). But more common are the more uncommon: Kayla, Hannah, Joelle, Laporcha, Shekina, Jazzmin, Sacha, and Aubree (or could Aubree be a male?). No doubt much of this represents simple cultural progression, especially popular cultural progression. I recall having in one of my first classes a young woman named Karma (though I remember it because it was so unusual at the time). And clearly much of it – particularly the Asian names and what might be African – comes from the cultural diversity of the past 40-50 years. Watching this change over my career certainly is just one more way to underscore my getting old (as if I needed any more reminders). But I like it. Civilization and culture should move forward, hopefully improving, even if in fits and starts. And perhaps the changing preferences for given names is a subtle sign of that continual movement.